The sun shone brightly on Neopia Central. Folks were hustling
and bustling about, restocking, earning some cash, or picking up food for their
pets. Some were seen lugging heavy trophies over to their Neohomes, or clutching
a codestone or two. It was truly a very busy day for everyone…especially a Neopian
Times writer.

“Hang on…that’s not how it’s spelled! Glitter,
where is my dictionary? Angel, have you been playing with my Light Faerie Eraser?
Sweet, please hand me a sharpened pencil! I have to submit this story by the
end of the day!” A flustered, frustrated and frantic girl scribbled away on
an Angelic Notebook, pausing every now and then to peek at a pile of papers
on her desk or to find something she needed for writing.

“Kat, Apollo hid the sharpener,” called Sweet.
The striped Kacheek ran into Kat’s room holding the sharpened pencil in one
paw and his blue Angelpuss in the other. After hurried thanks, his owner grabbed
the pencil and continued scrawling like the wind.

“What’s wrong with her?’ asked Fluffy (a white
Aisha) reading a book while dawdling toward the other three pets.

Glitter grabbed Fluffy before she could bump
into a wall. “Kat’s making a story for the Neopian Times again, and she’s totally
under time pressure.” The Faerie Acara grabbed the book out of the white Aisha’s
paws. “So this is the dictionary! Sorry, but our owner really needs it right
now.”

Fluffy shrugged. “Well, there were more books
where that came from,” she muttered to herself as she went out the door.

“Kat, here’s the eraser you wanted,” a voice
piped up from the bottom of the table. A blue Zafara showed up, clutching the
eraser. “You knocked it over when you reached for another paper.”

“Thanks, Angel,” mumbled their owner, taking
the eraser from him and frantically erasing away. Then she started writing again,
copying something from a sheet of paper.

Angel, Sweet and Glitter gazed at their owner
with interest. “I’ve never seen Kat this hardworking before,” said Sweet. “And
I’m supposed to be the eldest and the one who knows her the most.”

“Many Neopian Times readers are asking her to
write more stories,” said Fluffy, coming back with another thick book. “They
liked what she has been writing lately, even if she writes more rarely than
other authors. Remember all those messages and that mail we got yesterday? They’ve
been clamoring for another story, and Kat’s been short on ideas lately. She
wrote every single idea, suggestion and datum that she could think of, every
last piece that could please the readers, and scribbled them all onto so many
pieces of paper.”

“Thanks a lot, genius,” said Glitter. “At least
we know what’s in those papers. We’ve already known about those messages from
fans already. Poor Kat. I wish we could help her.”

The other pets all nodded and agreed. But when
they decided to approach their owner and ask if they could help, Kat finally
jumped up and looked at her watch. “I’m late! I’m late for a multiplayer game!
If I win this, we get more money! Speaking of Neopoints, I’ve got to earn more
Neopoints!”

Kat grabbed a backpack, and gave each of her
pets a nice big hug. “Take care, everyone…I’m off to find some food for us,
and maybe take a stab at the Faerie Crossword! I’ll be back before you can say
‘short story’.”

And with that, she ran off. A sheet of paper
fluttered to the ground in her wake. Before anyone could pick it up, their owner
peeked in the room again.

“Look, you can do whatever you want, as long
as it doesn’t break any rules or regulations. Don’t go out of the house, and
help yourselves to the leftover jelly. But whatever you do, do NOT touch what
I’m writing. I’ve worked hard on it, and I think it’s just about done. I can’t
submit it now because Snowflake is still out of her office! I’ll just come back
for it later. See you!”

All four pets just stared at their owner as she
streaked toward the front door.

“Wow, she runs really fast,” said Angel in awe.

“I’m hungry. What kind of jelly can we eat right
now? I hope it isn’t lemon…I hate lemon jelly,” Fluffy suddenly began.

“It’s lime, no doubt,” answered Glitter. She
picked off a piece with her paws, and while still hovering in the air, the Faerie
Acara began to eat.

The blue Zafara tried to reach her. “I want some!
I’m hungry too!” But Glitter just flew high, out of his reach.

“I think I’ll just eat later,” muttered Fluffy
as she went off to find another book.

“My Lost Desert Dagger needs polishing, and I
need to check if I have enough stone Kacheek heads for the Kacheek pebble lobber,”
added Sweet.

“Oh well, more for us, Angel,” said Glitter,
her mouth full of jelly.

***

About eight minutes and thirty-two seconds later, an empty plate with stray
jelly crumbs lay on the table. Glitter was tired of playing with her Usukis,
Fluffy had finished the last chapter of her new book about faeries, Sweet had
battled another bunch of Giant Spyders, and Angel was already done throwing
a ball for his Anubis to fetch.

“Let’s do something else,” added Glitter the
Faerie Acara, putting down her dolls.

“Oh yeah? Like what?” answered Fluffy the white
Aisha, as she watched her book vanish in a puff of blue smoke.

Glitter scratched her head. “Let’s chase each
other all over the Neohome!” she cried.

Sweet disagreed. “We could break something, and
Kat will throw a fit if we do,” he explained. “Let’s do something to help her
instead, so that when she comes home, she’ll be surprised that we did a nice
thing to her!”

“Why not help her make her story even better?”
said Fluffy and Angel together.

Glitter and Sweet grinned and nodded. “Come on,”
said Sweet, “when she gets another trophy for the Neopian Times, she’ll be really
happy. And we’ll be happy too, because we did something good.”

***

“Okay, so what now?” asked Angel, picking up Kat’s notebook. The four Neopets
had gotten some chairs and were now seated around their owner’s desk.

“We rewrite the boring parts, of course!” said
Fluffy. “Then we write the final story on some other paper so it would look
nice and neat.”

“But what do we add?” cried Glitter. Her pencil
was now poised on her own notepad.

Fluffy snatched the pencil and notepad from Glitter.
“I’ll write it. OK, I want to add some adventure, so let’s erase this part about
Jhudora and Illusen arguing…that’s old news anyhow.” She scribbled a strikethrough
on that part.

“And let’s take out this boring part about the
Rainbow Pool,” sighed Sweet. The striped Kacheek grabbed an eraser and began
erasing. “I want a little battle here… with a brave young Kacheek defending
his friends from the evil Dr. Sloth…”

Angel squeezed himself between Sweet and Glitter.
“I want some funny stuff! Comedies are cool!”

Fluffy’s paw began flying across the sheet of
paper, taking down everything Angel, Sweet and Glitter said, plus some ideas
of her own.

“Make that Zafara a blue one! Like me!”

“Put my name in it! I want to be famous!”

“No one will want to read about your fictitious
beauty contest victory, Glitter. Let’s erase it and put Jeran in the story instead!”

“But we’re not writing about the Battle for Meridell!”

“You guys! We have to make it fast! Let’s be
serious!” interrupted Fluffy.

***

“What do you think?” asked Fluffy. She had finally copied the edited story
onto another clean sheet of paper, and her paws were getting tired.

The other three pets crowded around the white
Aisha and began browsing through the story at different rates.

“Wow! I didn’t know we were good writers!” answered
Angel.

Glitter glanced out the window. “Everyone, let’s
get out of here! Kat’s coming home, and she’s running. Fast!”

The four Neopets pushed their chairs out and
quickly laid the final paper on top of Kat’s notebook. And just as their owner
opened the front door, every pet was seated casually on the table, as if nothing
had happened.

“Wow, you actually didn’t move from this table?
Well, I’ve got news—I’m going to submit my story right now, and Illusen was
kind enough to give me more cash…I’ll be stopping over by the bank and after
that, submitting my masterpiece!” Kat dashed over to her room, grabbing the
paper. Then she was out the door again.

***

“Look guys, the Times is out!” squealed Kat one morning, clutching the newspaper.

“Oh, joy,” muttered Angel, picking at his bacon
omelette.

Fluffy kicked him under the table and whispered,
“Kat may be about to read our story, silly!”

All of a sudden a knock on the door made Kat
drop the paper on the table and dash over to it. A package was on the doorstep,
and their owner quickly went through the wrapping.

“Oh, boy! Another Neopian Times trophy!” she
screamed. “All right! I did it! I did it! Time to read my award-winning piece!”

Everyone at the table held their breaths as Kat
began leafing through the Short Story section, searching for her story.

***

“That’s funny,” she mused to herself. “I don’t remember this part, or this
part, and I most certainly didn’t put this in my story!” Kat looked up at her
pets, which were suddenly wolfing down their food.

Just as they were finished and about to leave
the table, their owner abruptly stood up. “Explain this,” she said seriously,
throwing the Times in front of them all.

Angel, Fluffy, Glitter and Sweet all launched
into explanation.

“We wanted to do something good—“

“Not ruin the story! Honest!”

“So we edited it a bit—“

“We thought it would be great—“

“We’re sorry—we were bored and couldn’t do anything—“

“That’s where it all began… when we were bored!”

Kat scratched her head and looked at the four
pets, all looking ashamed. Then she burst into laughter.

“Oh, you guys,” she sighed. “I wasn’t going to
punish you for breaking the rules, I was going to congratulate you for breaking
the rules!”

“Huh?” was the reply.

“Well, remember when I told you not to touch
my story? It turns out that it was me who broke the rules! I wouldn’t let you
express yourselves and evaluate the story… and when you did pour out all your
feelings while editing my piece, you actually made it better!” she answered.
“Next time I write a story, I’ll let you guys help!”

The four pets grinned at each other. All except
Glitter, who picked up the Times and began reading herself.

“Hey! No one put me in the story!”

The End

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April Fools Madness"Yeah, Pup. That's why it's April Fools! On April Fools you trick other people!"